Milano Centrale (Italian: Stazione di Milano Centrale) is the main railway station of the city of Milan, Italy, and is the largest railway station in Europe by volume. The station is a terminus and located at the northern end of central Milan. It was officially inaugurated in 1931 to replace the old central station (built 1864), which was a transit station but with a limited number of tracks and space, so could not handle the increased traffic caused by the opening of the Simplon Tunnel in 1906.
Milano Centrale has high-speed connections to Turin in the west, Venice via Verona in the east and on the north–south mainline to Bologna, Rome, Naples and Salerno. The Simplon and Gotthard railway lines connect Milano Centrale to Basel and Geneva via Domodossola and Zürich via Chiasso in Switzerland.
Destinations of inter-city and regional railways radiate from Milano Centrale to Ventimiglia (border of France), Genova, Turin, Domodossola (border of Swiss Canton of Valais/Wallis), Tirano (border of Swiss Canton of Graubünden/Grisons), Bergamo, Verona, Mantova, Bologna and La Spezia.
The Milan suburban railway service, however, does not use Milano Centrale but the other mainline stations: Porta Garibaldi (northwest), Cadorna (west) and Rogoredo (east).
Aldo Rossi declared in an interview of February 1995 to Cecilia Bolognesi:[3] “They told me that when Frank Lloyd Wright came to Milan, and he came only once, he was really impressed by it and said it was the most beautiful station in the world. For me it is also more beautiful than Grand Central Station in New York. I know few stations like this one”.
History
The first Milano Centrale station opened in 1864 in the area now occupied by the Piazza della Repubblica, south of the modern station.[4] It was designed by French architect Louis-Jules Bouchot[5] (1817–1907) and its architectural style was reminiscent of Parisian buildings of that period. The station was designed to replace Porta Tosa station (opened in 1846 as the terminus of the line to Treviglio and eventually Venice) and Porta Nuova station (opened in 1850 as the second terminus on the line to Monza, which was eventually extended to Chiasso) and was interconnected with all lines, either existing or under construction, surrounding Milan. It remained in operation until 30 June 1931, when the current station was opened. There is now no trace of the old station left.
King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy laid the cornerstone of the new station on 28 April 1906, before a blueprint for the station had even been chosen. The last, real, contest for its construction was won in 1912 by architect Ulisse Stacchini, whose design was modeled after Washington Union Station in Washington, DC,[6] and the construction of the new station began. The purported style was an eclectic mix called “Assyrian-Lombard.”[7]
Due to the Italian economic crisis during World War I, construction proceeded very slowly, and the project, rather simple at the beginning, kept changing and became more and more complex and majestic. This happened especially when Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister, and wanted the station to represent the power of the Fascist regime.[8] The major changes were the new platform types and the introduction of the great steel canopies by Alberto Fava; 341 m (1,119 ft) long and covering an area of 66,500 square metres (716,000 sq ft).
Construction resumed in 1925, and on 1 July 1931 the station was officially opened in the presence of Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano.[9]
The station played a vital role during the Holocaust in Italy, when Jewish inmates from the San Vittore Prison, previously captured in northern Italy, would be taken to a secret track, Binario 21, underneath the station to be deported to extermination camps. Altogether, 15 deportation trains with 1,200 prisoners left the station from Binario 21. A Memoriale della Shoah was opened at the former platform in January 2013 to commemorate these events.[10][11]
Its façade is 200 metres (660 ft) wide and its vault is 72 metres (236 ft) high, a record when it was built. It has 24 platforms. Each day about 330,000 passengers use the station, totaling about 120 million per year.
On 25 September 2006 officials announced a €100 million project, already in progress, to refurbish the station. Of the total cost, €20 million has been allocated to restore “certain areas of high artistic value” while the remaining €80 million will be used for more general improvements to the station to make it more functional with the current railway services. The project includes moving the ticket office and installing new elevators and escalators for increased accessibility.[13]
There remain unrestored and inaccessible areas to the public within the station, including a waiting room with swastikas on the floor designed to receive Hitler.[7]
Link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milano_Centrale_railway_station
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